


Red Gloves and Wrist Bands

by Seasnake



Series: DC Soulmates [2]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 17:48:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7277812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seasnake/pseuds/Seasnake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doesn't really have an ending. I couldn't come up with a closing paragraph but after holding onto this document for years I decided to post it anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Gloves and Wrist Bands

            Tim had always assumed it was Asian. When he was eleven and the writing on his wrist first became clear, he showed it to his dad for advice. The man looked at it for a moment then confirmed Tim’s suspicion. “Looks Korean to me.” Tim only had a vague idea where Korea was at the time, but nodded anyway. “But it’s in English characters so she’s probably an immigrant. Guess you won’t have to trek half-way around the world like some people.” Tim’s dad patted his head affectionately.

 

            Of course, Tim had done research since then. He couldn’t find any meaning to the name, what country it was from, or examples of anyone else with the same name. It would help if characters were anything other than English. In the end he decided his soul mate was in an English speaking country with parents who made up a name that sounded vaguely Asian and quite possibly changed their last names a lot, because Tim only had one word on his wrist.

 

            Tim didn’t devote large amounts of time to his name. There were far more important things to concentrate on, like school, and later superheroing. At night he would sometimes lie in bed and wonder where his soul mate was and when they would meet, but who didn’t? Tim didn’t think it was anyone’s business or particularly polite to boast about your name and avoided any such conversations with his peers. His parents were old fashioned in that sense and agreed that it wasn’t a thing to talk about.

 

            In fact, the next time anyone actively mentioned it to Tim was Bruce. He just asked if Tim had met the person yet, no. And how thick of a wrist watch he needed to cover it, pretty thick actually Tim’s soul mate had large, sloppy handwriting. Dick only mentioned his name in passing, usually when he was going on about how he loved his mate very much and was sure Tim would be very happy when he met his own mate.

 

            The day Tim’s assumptions about his mate came into question started pretty normal. On last night’s patrol he had managed to twist his wrist slightly. It wasn’t a serious injury but it kept drawing his attention back to his wrist and the name there. He ended up using the powerful computer in the cave to search for any new information on his mate in between reading police reports.

 

            “Looking for your mate?” Bruce appeared behind him.

 

“Maybe,” Tim answered truthfully.

 

“It might be better to know. It’s up to you though,” he said in his most fatherly tone. Tim considered for a second then started to undo his glove.

 

“Can you look? Just to… I mean… I might want to avoid them, until my life is less crazy.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Yes.” Tim set his glove aside and unwound the strap. The only other person who had seen it was his dad but it would be good for Bruce to know, just incase something bad happened.

 

            Tim held out his arm and Bruce carefully took hold of his hand and turned it so he could read the name. Bruce was good at hiding his emotions but Tim noticed the slight clench of his fingers and the way his eyes narrowed when he looked at the name.

 

“Who is it?” he was suddenly very concerned.

 

“I don’t know.” Bruce let go and walked to the other computer chair.

 

“Is it Korean?”

 

“I doubt it.” Tim stared down at the six characters on his wrist.

 

“Then what is it?” he tried to keep the nervousness out of his voice, but this was important, it was his soul mate.

 

“I think it might be alien,” Bruce answered after a short pause.

 

“Alien?” Tim didn’t know what to think about that. “But it’s written in English. Are there alien immigrants born here?”

 

“Some.”

 

“Oh…” Tim looked down at his name. His old mental image of an olive skinned girl with long dark hair was suddenly replaced with a green squid creature. Tim shook his head. It might be fine. Superman was an alien, so was Martian Manhunter. There was no way to know.

 

            The new concept of his soul mate wasn’t too hard too accept considering he spent his nights fighting mutants in the city streets. Only two things changed, Tim made sure to keep an extra eye out for any mention of aliens. And he now lay in bed hoping his mate would be humanoid, male or female (he had decided that wouldn’t matter) rather than sexless, and wouldn’t have crazy alien abilities. Dick joked that Tim had inherited Bruce’s distrust for metas, but really Tim just didn’t want to be the frail little human in his upcoming relationship, he got enough of that from sparring with Killer Croc and Poison Ivy.

 

            Then Superman died and in the midst of that chaos appeared Superboy. The super socially inept, super excitable, super powered clone boy. Even after Superman comes back he stays weird. “Like a naughty puppy on crack.” As Dick so elegantly put it. At first Bruce kept Tim away from the young meta but they were the same age, physically, and Tim ended up working with the clone on a regular basis.

 

            After getting to know him, Superboy wasn’t all that bad. He was also starting to calm down. Fewer hordes of bikini clad women and publicity stunts. Privately, Tim decided to cut him a little slack. It must be strange coming out of a test tube in a teenage body, with superpowers, no family, and very little training. So, yeah, it took a while but eventually Superboy began to resemble a respectable superhero.

 

            Things changed again after Tim and Superboy worked together to hunt down an angry teenage Atlantian who was running amuck. They successfully handed the renegade over to Atlantian authorities when Superboy pulled Tim aside.

 

            “Hey Rob, we’re teammates, right?”

 

“Sort of.” Tim was cautious about where this conversation might lead.

 

“Sooo, I can ask you a favor, a big one?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Can you use your bat-powers to look up a name for me?”

 

“Not if it’s your soul mate’s name.”

 

“Come on, Rob. I know I’m not so good with relationships but I’ve mostly grown out of that. I mean it. It just took me a bit to figure things out. I am lucky to even have a name considering I’m a clone and all.” Superboy rubbed the back of his neck. “I want to meet him before something stupid goes wrong. I want to try something serious and, well, he’s the only one I want to try it with.”

 

“Him?” Tim couldn’t help but repeat the pronoun.

 

“Yeah, it’s a dude’s name. You gonna find him for me?”

 

“That’s really not allowed.”

 

            “Listen man, if you don’t help I’ll start looking myself. I’ve got superhearing I’ll fly around eavesdropping listening for every Timothy I can find. Even if you don’t match the handwriting can you at least give me a place to start?” Superboy finished. He then noticed that all the color had drained from Tim’s face and raised an eyebrow. Robin quickly coughed to regain his composure.

 

“Um, can I see it?”

 

“Sure.” Superboy kept his curious expression but didn’t hesitate to reveal his wrist. He held his arm out as he said the name out loud, “Timothy Drake.” Even upside down, Tim could recognize his signature.

 

“Oh…” Tim started to say something only to realize that he had no idea what, and just ended up stuttering. He never thought…

 

“You know him?” Superboy’s face became even more confused. “Oh shit, don’t tell me it’s Nightwing. That guy hates me.”

 

            “No um…” Tim instinctively reached for his wrist but paused. Revealing his secret identity went against all his training. But it was his soul mate staying silent went against every instinct he had. Besides, he reasoned, Superboy wouldn’t give up until he had an answer. He’d go around bothering people and maybe eventually show up at a Wayne charity to introduce himself to Tim, in front of the press and everything. That would be much worse. Tim bit his lip and yanked off his glove. He didn’t quite muster the courage to watch Superboy’s face as he held up his exposed wrist.

 

            “Awesome!” Tim almost squeaked when he was suddenly lifted off the ground in a bear hug. Superboy floated several feet off the ground while holding Tim uncomfortably tight to his chest. “This is perfect. We’re already friends and I’ve always thought you were hot. I totally would have flirted with you sooner if your dad wasn’t all scary.”

 

“Really?”

 

“What? Did you think I was only into girls? I totally had a fling with the prince of this island country two years ago. Not…that I’m going to do that anymore,” he stuttered a bit as he realized talking about his exes was probably a bad idea. Still didn’t put Tim down, though.

            “You’re name’s Kon-El?”

 

“According to Kal,” he shrugged. “And you, I guess.”


End file.
